Norway and the Arctic Circle

Sail Date:
June 2012

Destination:
Europe - British Isles & Western

Embarkation:
Southampton

This was our 18th cruise on Princess. It was made even better by an upgrade to a balcony cabin 1 week before the cruise started.
We spent 2 days in London before the cruise started and took Princess bus to Southampton. The weather was cool as expected but we had many sunny days especially when we went to North Cape and cruised the Geiranger Fjord. Grand Princess has a solarium pool were we spend few of the sea days relaxing and reading when it was too cold to sit on our balcony. Just like on an Alaska cruise , there were wool blankets on deck for passengers use.
Most of the passengers (1800) were from UK and only 280 were from US. Over 90% were over the age of 60. Very few children inboards.
We had anytime dining and usually ate between 6:00-6:30pm. Since we were willing to share a table, we never had to wait. There were very few tables for 2 so many couples were given pagers. A lot of people ate dinner at the buffet so we never saw lines waiting to get a table in either More
dining room.
Our food choices were very good - we usually stuck to seafood and pastas. On sea days we ate lunch in the dining room as did many others but never had a problem requesting a table for 2.There was a Pub Lunch on 4 of the 6 sea days. 2 different menus were offered.
We attended 1 production show "British Invasion" which was new to us. We tried the 1st comedy show but his 'jokes' went over our heads so we gave up on the rest of the British comedians, magician and ventriloquist. Even the Brits we talked to at dinner called them 'total rubbish'. The MacDonald Brothers were excellent singers and we enjoyed their shows very much.
We had to get to the the theater at least 30 minutes before the show started to get a good seat. Many people got there very early and ready their books before the show started.
Overall it was a great cruise with fabulous scenery and very nice weather. Less

In Longyearbyen we spent the morning walking to town, taking pictures and looking into the shops. It was a partly cloudy but windy day.In the afternoon we took the ship's tour to a Husky dog yard outside of town. We spend about 45 minutes with the dogs. There was a camp fire and they offered us coffee and cake. On the way back we stoped at several spots to take pictures.
Overall it was a great day.